


Sing A Song Of Snow

by theianitor



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Bets & Wagers, Christmas Music, Christmas Party, Christmas Sweaters, Drinking, Drinking Games, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-18 05:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13093380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theianitor/pseuds/theianitor
Summary: The all-teams Christmas Party is nice and all, but Daniel is a little bored. He decides to make up a game, which has absolutely nothing to do with that damned lobster.





	Sing A Song Of Snow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cinciarella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinciarella/gifts).



> Hey y'all! :) T'is the season for Christmassing it up. :) Many thanks to Rabbit for setting the thing up (<3), and I hope you all (and my lovely gift-ee especially) enjoy. :)

_A Saturday in December..._

Daniel couldn’t help but nod along to the music, despite not really being in the mood for holiday cheer. The upbeat Christmas-tunes playing were low enough to allow for conversation, but still loud enough to make sure he’d have sleigh bells on the brain until sometime in late January.

It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, he supposed. There was an open bar continuously serving up sticky, sweet, warm 'glögg' in tiny little cups, some kind of apple cider with cinnamon, and beers on the bar counter. Daniel had stuck to beer all night, but considering how amused Kevin and Marcus seemed as they giggled away at their table, he was starting to consider the glögg.

The dress-code was relaxed and while not everyone was in a Christmas sweater, a surprising number of people had found the rack of garish shirts in the hall funny enough to grab one and put it on. Daniel had picked one with a glittery Christmas tree, where every bauble was a colorful little bell. Stoffel had picked a brown hoodie with reindeer-antlers standing up from the hood. Esteban had found one with lights that lit up when you pressed a button, and as people got tipsier it had become something of a game to poke him and turn the lights on. Lance was winning, and Daniel smirked to himself thinking about it. You’d have to be blind to have missed that one. People had had their reservations about Lance, but he was alright, really.

He looked over the room and found Esteban and Lance, sitting together and laughing. Lance’s French was apparently a great source of humor. Their legs were touching, Esteban kept putting his hand on Lance’s arm as they talked and they didn’t seem to notice the room around them so much anymore, busy looking into each other’s eyes. Daniel wondered if he could get anyone to take the bet on those two as he drained the last foamy mouthful of beer and headed for the bar.

 

Brendon’s shirt with eight reindeer, each with two golden bells around the neck, jingled merrily as he accepted two drinks from the bartender.

“Alright mate?” he greeted, as Daniel gave the bartender his empty beer bottle and accepted a new one.

“No complaints,” Daniel smiled, raising his bottle in a toast.

They chit-chatted for a little while and Daniel smoothly brought up the tradition of betting on who would be doing their best to improve inter-team relationships. Brendon nodded with a snicker.

“Yeah there’s... something like that in endurance too.”

“Really?” Daniel was honestly surprised. He’d always thought of the WEC-drivers as a bit more serious and grown up... then again, he knew Mark, and Nico Hulkenberg would often make comments to the effect of being able to ‘go all night’. He should have known. “Alright, so you wanna put some money against a bit of Sahara Force Williams-action?”

Brendon laughed and looked over his shoulder at Lance and Esteban.

“I’m a rookie, not an idiot,” he said, turning back to Daniel with a grin. “What are the odds on Gasly and Stoffel?”

Daniel’s eyebrows shot up.

“Pierre and Stoffel? Why?” He quickly scanned the room, noticing the two drivers in question. They were standing next to each other, talking to a few of the others, but there certainly didn’t seem to be anything going on between them.

“Ten says they leave before Esteban and Lance,” Brendon said, taking his wallet out of his back pocket. Daniel just stared at him. “Fine,” Brendon said, digging out two bills. “Twenty?”

“If your wallet’s feeling heavy mate I could just _take_ the money off you?” Daniel grinned.

“Are you so afraid of losing you won’t even take the bet?” Brendon tsked, taking a sip from the curly straw sticking out of his drink. “Thought the _Formula one-drivers_ had balls...”

Daniel knew he was being provoked, knew it from the way Brendon was smirking and the way he had punctuated their job-title, but he had to admit it was effective.

“An even hundred says Pierre and Stoffel don’t leave together at all,” Daniel said firmly. They shook hands on it, and Brendon picked up his other glass from the bar.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” he said, turning to leave.

“Hey, where’d you get those?” Daniel asked, noticing the two glasses with the yellow-and-red drinks which could only be Tequila Sunrises. Brendon just looked at him, blinking rapidly.

“Are you kidding?”

“What? No?”

“Dan... the man behind the bar? He’s a bartender.”

Daniel looked at the guy behind the bar, who had obviously heard Brendon since he looked like he was trying to not laugh as he gave Daniel a little wave. Daniel didn’t say anything, but waited until a heartily laughing Brendon had left for his table before ordering a rum and coke.

 

“I want to play a game!” Daniel exclaimed two stiff drinks later, as he joined the high bar table where Fernando, Stoffel, Pierre, Max, and Brendon were standing around talking.

“Alright, anybody got a lobster?” Brendon said with a laugh. Daniel laughed, Fernando snickered, Pierre looked confused. Stoffel set about trying to explain the joke. Max quickly took his beer bottle off the table.

“I’m going to go talk to... eh... yeah,” he said, and left.

“Kids these days,” Daniel said, shaking his head. “No cojones.”

“So what’s the game?”

“Since we’re having to listen to Christmas music, I figured we could play a drinking game. We pick a word and when they sing it we have to drink.” Daniel grinned. He had gotten the idea from the drinking games that were sometimes played with the James Bond-movies, where people had to drink when certain things happened in the films.

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Stoffel said after a few seconds of thinking it over. “I thought it would be something much worse.”

“If you want worse I’m always up for ‘shot or dare’!” Daniel grinned broadly. Stoffel looked like he was about to ask what that meant when Fernando put his hand on his shoulder.

“No, Stoffel. No.” He shook his head slowly with a determined expression. Stoffel closed his mouth.

 

“Will need new drinks,” Fernando said, leaving the table and heading for the bar. Meanwhile, the others collectively decided to limit the game to five songs, and decided the word to drink on was ‘snow’.

“It’s bound to come up, but not as much as ‘Christmas’ or ‘Santa’,” Daniel argued, not wanting something that would murder the participants but also wanting to drink.

“Move your glass,” Fernando’s voice said from behind him. Daniel did as he was told and then stared stupidly as Fernando put a tray full of little glögg-cups on the table.

“What the bloody hell?”

“The bar was not supposed to be serving shots, so they have no normal glasses,” Fernando explained. “Is not the...” he waved his hand at the two Nordics in the corner who had somehow gotten Valtteri to join them. They were all red-faced and snickering, and their table was littered with small, black things that they kept picking up to eat or throw at each other. It took Daniel a moment to figure out that it was raisins.

“I thought we would be drinking our... drinks,” Pierre said hesitantly, eyeing the shots. Stoffel looked about ready to agree, whereas Brendon had already grabbed a glass and sniffed it.

“Is like you say, Daniel,” Fernando said with a wink in his direction. “They have no balls.”

Pierre huffed loudly, squaring his shoulders. He grabbed a glass and set his beer aside unnecessarily hard. Fernando was still smirking but not looking at Pierre as he took a glass.

“Are you coming?” he asked Daniel, who hurried to pick one of the tiny cups for himself. Fernando being this cheery was a little jarring; when they were on the grid he was friendly enough but serious about racing, and he usually kept to himself in their off-time. Now he was joking and winking and he’d even put on a red jumper with golden, fuzzy garlands running across it. It was different, but very nice.

 

The next song started and they all smiled, recognizing the first few bars of Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer. As the song entered the part where Santa asks Rudolph for help, Daniel swiftly drank down the contents of his little cup, the bells on his shirt jingling as he threw his head back. Nobody else drank however. He swallowed the liquid down, making a face. It was strong whatever it was, burning its way down his throat.

“Drink!” he urged the others.

“Why? It did not say snow,” Fernando said.

“Then one snowy Christmas night!” Daniel said, repeating the lyrics.

“Foggy,” Stoffel corrected, and Pierre nodded.

“... foggy?”

The others all laughed.

“Shit,” Daniel said, putting his empty cup aside. “Can’t you at least take one in sympathy or something?”

“I’ve got no sympathy for a man who doesn’t know the lyrics to Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer!” Brendon laughed. They talked through the end of the song, sure that their chosen drinking-word would not pop up.

 

The next song was a fast number where ‘snow’ was mentioned three times, and everyone drank. There wasn’t a lot of alcohol in the little cups, but every mouthful was sharp and burning. Daniel sipped his rum and coke, trying to get the taste out of his mouth. Fernando patted his shoulder with a smile.

“If you cannot play the game, why do you suggest the game?” he said, winking again.

“It’s not how you start mate, it’s how you finish,” Daniel answered, patting Fernando right back in an equally condescending way.

“If you keep drinking like that you will finish on the floor,” Fernando laughed, giving him another, less patronizing pat that seemed to linger just a little longer on Daniel’s arm than absolutely necessary.

An older song that nobody was sure of the lyrics to started up. They all stayed quiet, listening for their word, holding their glasses at the ready. Fernando kept eyeing them one after the other like he was in a western-film, about to draw his gun for the big duel. Daniel had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from bursting out laughing. There was no ‘snow’ however, and everybody seemed to be relieved. The tension from waiting and straining to hear the word seemed to lift and Daniel instantly felt a little drunker.

 

The next song started with soft congas and the strumming of a guitar. It didn’t sound very Christmassy at all.

“What the hell?” Brendon exclaimed.

“No! Wait!” Stoffel said, tilting his head down to hear the music better. “It is White Christmas!”

He was right. A heavily accented voice started singing and Fernando jokingly clapped his hands and took a couple of quick dance-steps. The others laughed as Daniel joined in, completely clueless as to how to dance properly but grabbing Fernando’s hand and giving him a twirl. He took a little bow as a couple of the team members and drivers around them applauded.

“Snow!” Pierre said, still laughing. They all drank.

“Is there any more coming?” Stoffel asked, listening again. The song had a long solo, but then repeated.

“One more!” Daniel said, grabbing a new drink and swallowing it down in one go.

 

There was a brief silence between the songs, and Daniel noticed that Stoffel’s cheeks were pink, Pierre was giggling at absolutely nothing, supporting himself against Stoffel’s arm, and Brendon had propped himself up with his elbows against the table. Fernando was a little drunk but seemed to be faring better than the rest of them, and Daniel was pleasantly tipsy himself.

“Look at these youngins,” he said, putting an arm around Fernando and gesturing towards the others. “No stamina! How do you say ‘stamina’ in Spanish?”

“Stamina?” Fernando said, looking at the other three. Brendon was trying to straighten up and Pierre couldn’t stop snickering. “Hm...” he thought for a second.

“You know... stamina!” Daniel did the first mime that came to mind, which was a clearly suggestive back-and-forth rocking of his hips. Fernando raised an eyebrow at him. Pierre and Stoffel doubled over in laughter and Brendon gave up trying to stand up properly, laughing while bent over the table, his shirt-bells rattling and the tinkling of all the little cups joining in.

“Know what ‘stamina’ means,” Fernando grinned, “but was not sure that is the kind you mean...”

He bumped his hip sideways against Daniel’s and Daniel lost his footing a little. He couldn’t say why, but it had suddenly dawned on him that Fernando was being _more than friendly_. His arm had gone around Daniel’s waist and it felt nice and steady, standing together like that, but Fernando’s fingers were toying with his sweater and it kind of tickled and kind of felt good.

“Let’s give it up, yeah?” Brendon suddenly said, snapping Daniel back to reality.

“What? Why?”

“It’s not a great song to finish on,” Brendon laughed. Stoffel was looking a little paler now and Pierre was looking at the others, trying to see what they would all do. Listening more closely, Daniel realized Let It Snow was playing.

“Eh yeah, it’s probably best to not do that one...” he started laughing as Stoffel started counting off the number of ‘snows’ on his fingers. “If we all want to live through the night at least. Good game, guys.”

They shook hands, Stoffel and Pierre grabbing another shot each before heading towards the glögg-drinkers' table, where Esteban and Lance had appeared and were now ‘helping’ with the raisins. Brendon muttered something about going to get some water and left for the bar. When they had gone, Daniel found he was still standing there with his arm draped over Fernando’s shoulders.

 

They flitted around for a bit, staying by each other’s side. Fernando kept straightening Daniel’s shirt, dusting him off, touching him with only the smallest of excuses for doing so. Daniel felt comfortable though, it was kind of nice, and they had both slowed down on the drinking. Talking to some of the others they amused themselves with making jokes about the conspicuous absence of the two Ferrari-drivers, wondering aloud what might have caused Kimi to stay away from a night that would admittedly have been spent in _their_ company, but which included free alcohol.

It got later and people started to disappear, the fairly quiet and calm event breaking up naturally. Lance and Esteban were still there but Pierre and Stoffel were nowhere to be found. Daniel cursed.

“Is something wrong?”

“Nah mate, sorry. I just had a bet going with Brendon about...”

Fernando interrupted him. “Ah, and Stoffel has left already?”

Daniel stared and Fernando laughed.

“You youngerins think you came up with all these things!” he batted his arm playfully.

“Well I did help come up with the lobster game,” Daniel said, shooting him a wink of his own. Fernando smiled, but said nothing. It got quiet and it made Daniel a little uncomfortable. He thought he might have stepped over the line.

“So what do we do now?” he heard himself say, not quite sure where the words had come from.

“Do you have a lobster?” Fernando said, starting to laugh. Daniel laughed too.

 

“You know lobsters are supposed to be good for your... drive,” Daniel said, and would have punched himself in the face if he thought he could get away with it. He sounded like an absolute idiot.

“Is nothing wrong with my drive, am champion two times.”

“Not that drive mate, your... drive.” Not sure how to explain it, he repeated the mime from before. Fernando laughed and grabbed his hips, obviously to get him to stop being silly, not at all to get a hold of him and stand even closer, right in front of him.

“Is. Nothing. Wrong. With. My. Drive,” he repeated slowly, grinning and moving closer still. Daniel was still trying to think of a good comeback for that when Fernando gave him a cheeky pat on the ass.

“Is time for bed, I think.”

“Oh,” Daniel said, feeling a little disappointed. Not that he’d been _planning_ anything, but he’d thought there’d be something more than this at the very least. “Yeah I suppose. I need to call a taxi.”

“What?”

“I need to call for a taxi, I’m staying at the...”

Fernando interrupted him again. It was a skill he had; when he started talking, it always felt like it was best to listen.

“You have not learned anything in all this time,” he said, shaking his head in an exaggeratedly disappointed way. “Always, always, you book a room at the hotel closest to the party, in case of getting really drunk or finding something... _fun_ to do.”

It could have meant anything, really, Daniel thought. But Fernando’s fingers had sneaked in under his sweater and seemed to have found one of the belt loops on his pants, steering him ever so slightly out of the room and towards the lobby.

“This is a hotel,” Daniel said stupidly. His mouth felt a little dry.

“Exactly,” Fernando grinned. “So you are coming?”

“What?” Daniel felt really stupid now, he realized he hadn’t thought he could get anything by his very light flirting, but he got the feeling that Fernando had _picked_ him. It felt a bit strange, but the fluttering excitement in his stomach had very little to do with alcohol and much more to do with what seemed to be an invitation to a more private event in Fernando’s room.

“Am thinking maybe we can find something _fun_ to do,” Fernando said, his voice low.

The elevator doors slid open and Fernando pressed the button for his floor, his other hand still holding on to Daniel’s pants. When the doors closed he let go and pushed him back a little, standing right in front of him again. Something in his eyes reminded Daniel of the Fernando he knew from on the track, competitive and serious, but the way he was smiling was completely confident and almost predatory. He moved closer, eliminating the tiny bit of free air between them.

“Aguante,” he whispered, standing on tiptoes and almost leaning against Daniel now.

“What?” Daniel whispered back. It was a good thing he couldn’t get away with punching himself, he thought, because he had just sounded really stupid again. Fernando grinned.

“You need to learn more Spanish, cangurito.”

The elevator stopped and the doors opened. Fernando took hold of his hand this time, leading the way to his room. Once inside he pushed Daniel against the wall again.

“Aguante, is how you say...” his hands, which had already been proven to be quite adept at finding their way around without Daniel noticing, sneaked down his front. “... stamina, in Spanish,” Fernando finished. Daniel gasped as Fernando cupped him, squeezing slightly, like he was assessing if Daniel would be worth his time. By now he was really rather hoping he would be. Fernando's lips met his, soft and warm and now Daniel _really_ hoped he was measuring up. He had just figured out to use his hands to pull Fernando even closer when the Spaniard broke the kiss and smiled hungrily at him.

“Let me show you aguante, cangurito.”

 

\- The End -

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for the read! :)  
> All in good fun, as per usual! <3


End file.
